Today, I received a phone call from a place I do business with and the person on the other end felt it necessary to talk nonstop. Of course, every time I would try and say something, they would start in a mile a minute never once listening to a thing I said. In this case, it had to do with billing and I was trying to make sure they did no
t get double billed.
This isn't the first time I've run into this nor the first person that ever has done this. It seems to be an ongoing thread in our society. We don't listen to the other person, we just talk and talk and tell them everything that we feel they need to hear, rather than listening to them.
No matter what you do or how much you try to talk, these people just don't listen! They keep going on and on and getting louder and louder until they have drowned you out. What you have to say may be very vital to the conversation but unless you want to get in a shouting match, it doesn't matter. They are not going to hear you.
Growing up, my father and a brother was this way. They still are this way because they think they have to be the one yapping their gums louder than anyone else, or life doesn't go on! Neither of them would listen while I was growing up and they still don't! You could have told them the house was on fire, and I doubt they would have heard you.
It all boils down to how much more importantly we see ourselves than everyone else. If you're talking nonstop and louder than you need to, than you're not listening. If you're not listening, you're not valuing the other person much at all. You are treating them as if what they have to say or what concerns them does not matter.
A human body has two ears and one mouth. It would stand to reason that we use the ears twice as much as the mouth. Many humans do this but there are far too many that don't. If you don't believe me, just spend 15 minutes observing people around you or on the news. It will be quite obvious.
We can offer so much to so many by listening or at least finding a balance in a conversation. By closing our mouth and opening our ears, we lift the other person up and show them they are important to us. Let us try to use our ears and our mouth appropriately instead of using one more than the other! I'll bet if we all did that, our world would be a different place!
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